Hermann Emil Fischer(Lt. 1852-1919)
Hermann Emil Fischer
Emil Fischer, a German, was the son of a wealthy merchant. He graduated from the Gymnasium of Bonn in 1869. After an abortive foray into the business world, he entered the University of Bonn in 1871 to study chemistry under Frederick August Kekule(Lt. 1829-1867), master of structural chemistry. After receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Strasbourg in 1874, he taught at the Universities of Erlangen and Wurzburg, eventually becoming Professor of Chemistry at the University of Berlin in 1892 while succeeding Hofmann. He published his discovery of phenylhydrazine in 1875. Later in 1899, he turned to a detailed study of protiens. It was in the study of structural chemistry to the study of proteins that Fischer saw the possible future collaboration of biology and chemistry. He developed the theory of the 'peptide bond', the chemical linkage by which all amino acids are joined together to form their respective proteins. He also chemically synthesized an octadecapeptide, composed of three leucine+15 glycine residues. Frequently referred to as the father of biochemistry, Fischer received the second ever Noble Prize in Chemistry(1902) for his work on the synthesis of purines and sugars. Fischer collections of 9,000 reference compounds is housed in the Department of Biochemistry, the University of California at Berkeley. The prized collection was a gift of H.O.L. Fischer, a biochemist and the only one of Fischer's three sons to survive World War
I. Following the deaths of his two sons in World War I, Emil Fischer committed suicide.
Fritz Albert Lipmann(Lt. 1899-1986)
Fritz Albert Lipmann
Lipmann was a German-born American biochemist. After obtaining M.D. degree, he started research career in 1927 as an unpaid graduate student under the famous biochemist Otto Meyerhof. He was awarded 1953 Noble Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his discovery of coenzyme A and revealing its importance in intermediary metabolism, along with Sir Hans Adolf Krebs of Great Britain. Lipmann is popularly called as the 'Father of ATP Cycle' He introduced the "squiggle" notation to designate the energy rich bonds of bio molecules such as ATP and ADP. He was professionally active at Rockefeller University until his death at age 87. His famous quote(1949) reads as follows:
"It seems that in the field of biosynthesis we have a rare example of progress leading to simplification."
